The Dream of Unbreaking
by YT1
Summary: A Sandman/Samurai Jack crossover. What is the true nature of Jack's enchanted sword? Even he doesn't know - until he needs to get it fixed. Part of Chapter 4 has been revised.
1. Introduction and Acknowledgements

Dream of Unbreaking

A _Samurai Jack/Sandman _crossover fanfic by Y.T.

_Samurai Jack _is a cartoon series created by Gennedy Tartakovsky and aired on Cartoon network.  The _Sandman_ comic book series was created by the incomparable Neil Gaiman, and is published by Vertigo Comics, a division of D.C. comics.  I used elements from both these stories to write this one, without permission but with a great deal of love and respect.  And I'm not intending to make money off it, so please don't sue me.  If you want to reproduce my story in whole or in part, please give me credit for writing it.

This fic is rated PG-13 because it deals with the issue of suicide.

Thanks to my friend Val for getting me hooked on _Sandman_ in the first place, as well as a number of other cool things (though _Samurai Jack_ wasn't one of them).

Let me warn you – this is a rather unconventional _Jack_ story.  You can cross _Sandman_ with almost anything, but when you do, it tends to take your original idea and run amok with it.  That causes some weird and wonderful things to happen.

Enjoy the story, and please review!

Hitotsume no kotoba wa yume

Nemuri no naka kara

Mune no oku no kurayami o

Sotto tsuredasu no__

_The first word was "dream"_

_From the middle of sleep_

_Which secretly accompanies_

_The darkness in my heart_

----from _Voices_

_Macross Plus_

  
   
   
  



	2. Chapter 1: The Unexpected Host

            Jack collapsed onto his hands and knees, breathing hard from the run.  He should be safe here – he had run very far – but even if he wasn't, he didn't have the strength to run any farther.  His kimono was rent and his skin lacerated by the beast's claws, but the pain of his wounds was nothing compared to the agony in his heart.

            _The sword was broken._

            He took a few minutes to catch his breath, then drew what remained of his katana from its scabbard.  The beast had broken the blade halfway along its length.  Jack had the part of it that was attached to the hilt, but the rest of it was somewhere far behind him.  He didn't know how it could have happened, but the beast had bitten down on the blade and…it had _broken._  Then Jack had fled, in shock and panic, thinking that he could hear Aku's cruel laughter ringing in his ears.

            _I should have let the beast kill me.  At least then I could have preserved some remnant of my honor._  His vision blurred as his eyes filled with tears.  He heard sobbing; his own, he realized.  It was shameful to cry this way, but he could not stop himself.  After all this time, all his traveling and all he had endured…failure.  It all came to nothing.  A long, low, keening wail of despair escaped his lips.

            Jack was beaten.  He had lost – and there was only one course to take.  Though he had not died in battle, he could still die with honor, like a samurai ought to.  The broken sword would serve to slit his stomach, at least.  He had no fellow warrior to strike off his head for him, so his death would be slow and painful.  But it would at least be an honorable death.  It would, in some measure, make up for his failures.

            He wiped his tears with his sleeve and got into a kneeling position, setting the sword before him on the bare ground.  This jagged, chilly mountainside, with its gray stone and gray mists and gray skies, would be his deathbed and his grave.  There would be nobody to burn him on a funeral pyre, nobody to say prayers or to mourn, but he felt he did not even deserve that scant comfort.  He prostrated himself on the ground and spoke a prayer to Amida Buddha, then sat up again.  He loosened his sash a little and pulled the torn cloth of his robe aside to expose his belly – then he took the sword in his hands, holding it so that the jagged end was a hairsbreadth from his skin, and nerved himself to…

            "Whatever it is, lad, it can't be as bad as all that."  Startled, Jack spun around to face the source of the voice.  Standing on a boulder not far away from him was a tall, broad-shouldered man in rough clothing, his ginger-red hair loose about his shoulders, his bearded face a kindly smile.  He was wearing a great broadsword in a scabbard on his back.  The stranger (or was he a stranger?  He seemed familiar somehow) leaped down from the boulder and approached him, his open hands showing that his intentions were friendly.  "And that's a hell of a way to go, in any case."

            Pulling his _ghi_ closed again, Jack stood up to face the stranger.  "Please, leave me to do this.  It is the only honorable course left to me."

            The stranger shook his head.  "No it's not.  It's giving up and that's never honorable, not under any circumstances."  He looked Jack over carefully.  "Looks like you've had a rather bad day.  Come on, I'll give you some food and clean clothes and a place to sleep for the night.  And I'll do something about those scratches, they look painful."  He held out his hand.  "Everything will seem better after some food and a good night's rest. My house isn't too far."

            Jack pondered this.  The man's interruption had been rude and bordering on sacrilegious, but of course he couldn't know about the tradition of seppuku so he couldn't be blamed for that.  And he had offered his hospitality – refusing it would be unthinkable.

            So he would accept.  There was nothing else to do.  "Thank you," he bowed.  "I will go with you."

            The red-haired man grinned, his teeth shining white.  "That's good, lad."  His eyes went to Jack's broken katana, which was lying on the ground.  "Maybe I can fix that sword of yours.  I have some experience in such matters."

            Jack went to pick it up.  "I mean no offense, but I do not think you could.  It is enchanted and the ones who forged it passed on a long time ago."  He put it back in its scabbard.

            "I can tell.  As I said, I have some experience in these matters."  He beckoned for Jack to follow him, then went to walk around the boulder he had been standing on before.  Jack trailed after, wondering at this strange man.  Maybe he wasn't a man at all, but a _kami_, a wild spirit.  Jack felt uneasy at that thought – but even so, he reasoned, the fellow had offered him help, and if he intended to do harm he could do no worse to Jack than he had intended to do to himself.

            The man walked down a rough little path, a goat track, whistling a little tune.  After a few minutes they came to a place where the path ended, near a great wall of rock.  The wall was split, leaving an opening just wide enough for the stranger to pass by turning sideways.  Jack went after him.

            They emerged into a small valley, and Jack found the green of it startling after the gray rock.  The path continued here, a small dirt track, and the red-haired man kept walking along it.  They went around a bend, and came to a fair-sized wooden house with a thatch roof.

            "Home sweet home," the man proclaimed as he opened the front door.  He gestured for his guest to enter the house first.

            Jack bowed to him and removed his sandals, as his custom dictated, before entering the house.  The room he came to was large, simply but comfortably furnished, with a stone fireplace in which a few embers glowed.  The stranger got a few logs and sticks from a nearby bin and tossed them on the embers, then prodded them with a fire iron until the logs caught.  He smiled in satisfaction.

            "Sit down here and warm up.  I imagine that you'll be wanting a bath, so I'll go heat some water for you.  And I'll see what's in the larder for a meal."  Jack thanked his host and sat down on the rug before the hearth.  The man left through another door – Jack caught a glimpse of the kitchen beyond it – still whistling merrily to himself.

            Jack sighed and closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the fire as it took the chill from his bones.  His host had been right.  He was starting to feel better already.


	3. Chapter 2: A Favor

            Destruction opened the door and peeked in on his guest, who was resting peacefully in the guestroom bed.  He had put something in Jack's tea to help him sleep – after all, the lad needed it.  Destruction drew back a bit when he saw Jack shift in his sleep.  His arm, swathed in a linen bandage, stuck out from under the blankets.  Destruction had tended to the warrior's hurts with great care and skill.  Though war had been his business for a very long time, he knew peaceful crafts as well.

            Satisfied that his guest could not be woken by anything less than the most drastic of measures, Destruction pushed the door open and went into the room.  He picked up the katana from where it was resting on a stool and drew it carefully from its scabbard.  He put his fingertips to the damaged blade to examine it, and nodded to himself.  It was as he had thought.

            He put the sword back down and left the room, closing the door softly behind him.  He descended to the ground floor and approached a small wooden door that was set in the stairwell, taking a key from the pocket of his tunic.  Anyone who saw the door would have concluded, quite reasonably, that it opened into a small broom closet under the stairs.  Destruction unlocked the door and, ducking to pass under the lintel, stepped through into a stone-walled chamber.  He closed the great bronze door behind him.

            The room was ten feet long, ten high and ten wide, a simple box with no windows or other discernable light source, yet there was light enough to see by.  In the center of the floor was a round pool, the water in it rippling occasionally as if a pebble had been dropped in, but there was nothing to cause the ripples.  On each wall of the room (except for the one into which the door was set), there hung two objects, making six in all.  They were, from left to right; a great tome wrapped in chains, a silver ankh, a strange-looking helmet, a pink chrome heart, a ring with a barbed hook, and an indefinite, shifting swirl of colors.

            Destruction walked around the pool to the helmet hanging on the far wall.  It looked like the head of some huge, strange insect, with shining green eyes.  Destruction regarded it carefully for some time, as if locked into a staring contest with those eyes.  If he did what he was planning to do, it was going to be something of a problem.  He would have to move again.  And he'd just gotten used to things here.  Maybe he shouldn't…

            But, he realized, he had to.  It was important.  If he didn't do something, he would certainly regret it later.  He took the helm down from the wall, held it in his hands, and spoke the words.

            "Dream of the Endless, I stand in my gallery and I hold your sigil.  Will you come to me?"  No turning back now.

            **_I am here, brother.  It has been some time since we last met._**  Destruction turned and looked to the speaker, who was standing to the right of him.

            The man was tall and thin, with skin the color of snow and wild hair of the same color.  His eyes – or what he had instead of eyes – were twin pools of night, their pupils distant twinkling stars.  He wore a flowing robe of white silk that blew in a nonexistent breeze, and in the folds of it flames and rainbows flickered.  An emerald pendant hung on a silver chain about his neck.  He looked to be in his teens or early twenties, but in truth he was older even than Destruction.  And Destruction was old even before the Earth itself had been born.

            He greeted his brother.  "It's good to see you again, too.  How are things going in your realm?"

            **_All is well with me.  But I know you did not call me here for mere pleasantries._**  Dream looked around the room, then back at his brother.  **_Are you planning to return to us?_**  His tone of voice said that he hoped it was so, but knew that it was not.

            "You know the answer," Destruction said.  "I'm sorry."  He hung the mask on the wall again.

            His brother's gaze dropped to the floor for a moment.  **_For what purpose, then, have you called me here?_**

****"I'll show you," said Destruction by way of explanation.  He went to the bronze door and opened it, then walked through it.  His brother followed behind.  Once they had both left the room, Destruction closed the little wooden door and locked it.  He moved to the stairs and began to climb them.  Although his footsteps made the boards creak, his brother's feet made no sound at all.

            Destruction put his hand on the knob of the guest room door, then put a finger to his lips for quiet.  He edged the door open slowly, and nodded at the person sleeping in the bed.  "You know who he is, don't you?"

            **_Of course,_** Dream answered him.  He watched as Destruction padded into the room and picked up the sword from its stool.  He offered it to his brother for inspection.

            Dream took it and drew the weapon from its scabbard.  He looked at it carefully.

            "You see why I called you," Destruction whispered.  "That stuff is in your realm, not mine."  Dream slid the sword back into its scabbard.

            **_I understand your concern,_** Dream said as he replaced the sword.  **_This is a most serious problem.  But I am surprised that you involved yourself in it, since you have given up your post._**

            Destruction glared at his brother, then stalked out of the room.  Dream, feeling a little confused, followed him out the door and closed it.  Destruction was standing at the top of the stairs, facing him.  When the door was closed, Destruction walked down, and his brother followed suit.  They went into the front room.  Destruction closed the door before wheeling on his older sibling.

            "He was going to _kill_ himself with that thing.  That's how I found him and 'involved myself,' if you must know," he growled.  "Despair has her hook in his heart, and if she drags him down this whole world will go with him.  He's all they have left."  He had to turn away from the midnight gaze of his brother.  "I'm sorry.  It's just that I really don't want to see that happen."

            **_Neither do I,_** Dream said.  **_I will get what you need to repair the sword, but I must make some preparations first._**  He paused, thinking for a few moments.  **_Perhaps I should take him with me as well._**

            Destruction turned back to him.  "You think that's wise?" he asked.

            **_I believe it is _necessary_,_** Dream replied.


	4. Chapter 3: Collecting the Light

            Jack woke up, suddenly, to see a face looking down at him.  It was not the face of his host, but someone else, a snow-skinned man with pale yellow hair and strange-looking eyes.  He was not alarmed by this at all – he knew the man, though he could not for the life of him figure out how…

            The man drew back from the edge of the bed.  **_Come with me.  We are going to find what you need to repair your sword._**  The voice seemed to enter his head without using his ears.  Jack did as he was told, throwing back the covers and getting out of the bed.  He was surprised and more than a little puzzled to see that he was wearing his _ghi_ and sandals.  His wounds, and the dressings on them, were gone.  He reached out his hand to take his katana from the stool by the bed, but the pale man shook his head no.  Jack drew back his hand and looked at the strange visitor.  He was a tall, thin man in a white silk kimono decorated with golden embroidery.  Around his neck he wore a silver necklace, upon which hung a twinkling emerald the size of a sparrow's egg.

            "Who are you?" he asked.  "I am sure I have met you before, but I do not remember your name."

            **_Everyone knows me,_** the man said.  **_But my name is of no importance.  You know who I am, and you do not need it._**

            Jack realized that this was true, and he nodded.  The man reached into the sleeve of his kimono and withdrew a crystal sphere that fit comfortably into the palm of his hand.  He walked to the door and motioned for Jack to follow him.  The door opened without being touched, and he walked through it.  Jack did too, and was not at all surprised when he found that the door no longer led into the upstairs hall.

~***~

            Instead, the two were in a vacant lot in a big city.  Tall buildings blocked out most of the smoggy sky and hovering vehicles zipped about their errands far above.  Jack could smell and taste the pollution in the air, and his ears cringed at the noise.  He hated these places and avoided them whenever possible, but since the pale man had seen fit to bring him here, he could not complain.

            **_Look,_** the man said, pointing to a heap of derelict cars and broken furniture.  Jack did so.

            A group of children ran out from behind the heap, shrieking at the tops of their voices.  One of them, a chubby little boy, was wearing an old black hat, battered with much use and abuse.  In pursuit of him was a girl in a tattered white bathrobe, wielding a wooden sword in her hands.  The other children were following after them.  None of them seemed to notice Jack or his companion.

            Jack had seen this game before.  It usually brought him a mix of pride and embarrassment, but now it was embarrassment and shame.

            The little girl finally caught up with the boy in the hat and commenced to whack him repeatedly with her wooden sword.  "Gotcha now, Aku!  Yaaaah!"  The other children let up a cheer, except for the boy in the hat, who was yelping with every blow the girl in the robe delivered.  She pushed him over, planted a foot on his back and struck a heroic pose, smiling triumphantly.

            "Okay, whose turn is it now?" another child called out.

            "My turn to be the samurai," the chubby boy insisted.

            "No," piped up the smallest of the children.  "I haven't gotten to play in _forever_ and it's my turn now!"

            "You're too little to be the samurai!"  A boy in a blue shirt mocked him.

            "No, he's right, it's his turn," the girl in the white robe declared.

            "Why's it his turn?" the blue-shirted boy sneered.

            "_Because I said so,_" the girl snarled, raising her fist in a threatening gesture.  The boy in the blue shirt backed down.  The girl removed the bathrobe and helped the small child put it on, then she handed him the wooden sword.  He squealed with delight.

            The girl took the black hat from the chubby boy's head, then looked around at the other children.  She smiled mischievously before putting the hat on the blue-shirted boy's head.  "_You _can be Aku this time," she decided.  With a high-pitched yell, the smallest child leaped at the boy in the black hat.  The unfortunate Aku impersonator scrambled over the junk pile, the other children in hot pursuit.

            **_There.  We have all we can get from here._**  Jack looked at the pale man.  The crystal orb in his hands was now glowing with a faint golden light.  He turned and walked through a gap in a nearby wooden fence.  Jack looked at the children running around the pile one last time before following him.

~***~

            They emerged into a small library.  The walls were covered with bookshelves, packed full to bursting with tomes, volumes, novels, paperbacks, hardbacks, and other objects of lore.  In the center of the room was a small round table, at which an old man was sitting.  His head was mostly bald, but his beard was long, and all his hair was very gray.  He was poring over a large book, moving his lips silently as he read to himself.

            Jack approached one of the bookshelves and examined its contents.  Some of the books he knew, or at least he knew the stories they contained – others he did not.  There was the chronicle of Beowulf, the legend of King Arthur, the _Odyssey_, and – he felt a wave of nostalgia wash over him – a book of the Lotus Sutra.  With a jolt, he realized that all these were banned books, books that Aku had forbidden the people under his rule to read.

            He heard a door open, and turned around to see who had come in.  It was a young woman, carrying a tray laden with teapots, cups and snacks.  She set it down on the table near the old man.  "Father, it's teatime now."

            "Just let me finish this paragraph, Leila," the old man said.  The woman sighed, but she waited for him to conclude his reading.  A few moments later, the man put a bookmark on the page he had been reading and closed the book.  Jack looked at the cover, upon which the title was displayed in flaking gold leaf: _The Holy Bible._

            "I've just been reading a very interesting story," the old man said to his daughter, "Called the Exodus."

            The girl shook her head and smiled as she poured him some tea.  "I've read that one, father."

            The old man blinked in surprise.  "You have?  Hmm."  He took the cup of tea she proffered him.  His hands, while they were gnarled and spotted with age, were steady.

            "It's a good story, even if the language is a little hard to work through," she said.  "I wonder if anyone else has read it, besides you and me?"

            The old man frowned.  "Maybe, but it's not a good idea to go about asking.  Not yet."  He took a sip of his tea.  "But times are changing, Leila.  Soon you'll be able to share these books with the whole world, if you want to."

            "You mean we," Leila said, taking a sip of her own tea.

            Her father sighed.  "I may not live long enough to see it.  But you will, dear.  The time will come when you won't have to worry about getting caught with these anymore," he indicated the library with a sweep of his hand.  "Then you can be proud of them.  You'll be famous for keeping them safe."  He smiled contentedly.

            Leila looked around the room at the books.  She looked right at Jack, and at the pale man, as her gaze swept over the shelves, but she did not perceive either of them.  "Then I can read Robin Hood stories to my kids at bedtime," she said.  She and her father broke out into laughter.

            **_There was more than I thought there would be,_** the pale man said, sounding pleased.  Jack turned to him again – the orb in his hands was glowing with more light than before.  **_We have two more places to visit,_** the man announced.  He walked to the door through which Leila had come a few minutes ago.  It opened for him as he approached it.  Jack entered after him, and the door closed behind.

~***~

            Now they were in a room that was slightly larger than the last one, but very crowded.  The windows were covered by shades. The only light came from some fluorescent tubes on the ceiling.  Jack and the pale man were standing behind several rows of chairs, in which a number of people were sitting.  Most of them were armed, with rifles, spears, bows and arrows, or farm tools.

            There was a woman standing at the front of the room.  She was a gangly creature with unkempt brown hair, and glasses whose wire frames were held together with tape.  She was pacing back and forth before the audience, addressing them in a voice filled with zealous fervor.

            "Are we gonna let Aku take our land?" she roared.

            "_NO!_" was the resounding response from the assembled folk, who raised their weapons for emphasis.

            "Are we gonna let him push us around?" she shouted.

            "_NO!_" returned the audience.

            "We've had enough of him and we ain't gonna take no more!" the speaker declared, punching the air with her fist.  "Liberty or death!"

            "_LIBERTY OR DEATH!_" the people repeated after her.

            "Now let's show 'em what we're made of!" the girl announced, pointing to the door.

            The audience cheered and got up from their seats.  Jack flattened himself against the wall to avoid being crushed by the tide of people going through the door.  The pale man did not move, and indeed did not notice as the crowd passed right through him.  The scrawny girl who had been addressing the group was the last to leave.

            **_Look,_** the pale man said, holding up the orb.  It was glowing brightly now, like a warm fire on a winter night.  **_We only need a little more.  Let us go and get it._**  He went to the door and it opened before him.  Again, Jack followed him through.

~***~

            Jack recognized the place where they now stood.  He had passed through it on his travels.  The weathered, moss-covered stones, the hills that had once been the foundations of great buildings, the remains of the palace road.  It was all that remained of his home.  He felt ashamed to be here, among the ghosts of his people and his family, without his sword or his honor.  He hunched his shoulders, wishing he could just disappear, and looked at the ground.

            "Don't worry, they understand," said a girl's voice.  Jack turned to look and saw a smiling young woman standing there.  Her skin was as pale as her brother's, but her hair was black and gathered in a somewhat dilapidated bun on the top of her head.  She wore a black silk kimono with silver gilt embroidery, and a silver ankh – Jack had learned the symbol during his studies in Egypt – hung on a chain around her neck.  Her eyes sparkled with all the mirth and joy in the world.  Her very presence brought him a great deal of comfort.  She was, Jack thought, the most beautiful person he had ever seen, or ever would see.  She was also, somehow, very familiar, like a sister or a best friend, but he couldn't recall having met her before.

            He bowed respectfully to her, as did the pale man.  She returned their bow, then smiled at each of them.  "Hello, Jack.  Hello again, little brother."  She looked at the orb in the pale man's hand.  "Wow, you have a lot already," she remarked.

            **_But it is not quite enough,_** the man replied, **_and only you can get it from this place, my sister._**  He held out the orb to her, and she took it carefully.

            "Okay," she said.  "Just hold on a minute."  She held the orb up to the sky.

            The air had been still before, but now a breeze began to blow.  Jack could hear whispers in the air, bits of conversations, laughter and music.  He heard the sound of merchants at the market, drums being played at rice-planting time, and carts rumbling along the streets.

            Then an image superimposed itself on that of the ruins – that of the city in its heyday, happy and bustling and alive.  People walked through the streets, children played in the gardens, and flags bearing the crest of the Emperor flew from the tops of the buildings.  Unlike the people in the places they had passed before, these people noticed them; they smiled and bowed and spoke greetings to them as they passed.

            "It's ready now," the girl in black said.  Everything began to glow with golden light – then the buildings and people and things became a whirlpool, centered on the orb in the girl's upraised hand.  It glowed brighter and brighter as the whirlpool shrank around it, as it drew in the light.  The sounds, as well as the images, became a swirling blur.

            In a few seconds that seemed like forever, it was over.  The orb in the girl's hands was glowing so bright that it hurt to look at.  She smiled and held it out to the pale man.  "There you go.  Always glad to help."  The pale man thanked her and tucked the orb into the sleeve of his robe again.

            She turned to Jack.  "And remember, we wouldn't have been able to get any of it if it weren't for you."  After this cryptic remark, she smiled, winked and vanished.

            **_Now we have all we need,_** the pale man said.  He walked through a stone doorway, still standing after all this time.  After taking a last wistful look at his home, Jack went through the doorway too.


	5. Chapter 4: Waking Up

          Now they were in a stifling smithy, where Jack's host was standing in wait for them..  He was now wearing a blacksmith's leather apron, and his face was covered with sweat.  He turned to look at them and smiled.  "Everything's ready here," he informed them.

            The pale man pulled the bright orb from his sleeve.  **_We have more than enough for the task, I think,_** he said.  He handed the orb to the red-haired man, who weighed it in his hand.

            "Yep, that'll do all right," he concluded.  Jack wondered what it was that they were talking about, what it was that they had been collecting, but he felt that he would know soon enough.

The red-haired man walked over to a the forge, where a great stone bowl with a spout in it hung over a rough cylinder of clay.  The cylinder was about a foot in circumference and four feet tall.  Jack went over to inspect it and noticed that there was a small hole in the top; it was a clay mold.

"I've already melted the rest of the blade," the red-haired man said.  "Brother, will you do the honors?"

            The pale man nodded and walked up to the bowl.  He held the orb over it, palm downward, and began to squeeze.  It collapsed like a sponge, the liquid light dribbling out of it like water, into the hole in the top of the clay mold.  Jack could smell the stuff – it reminded him, for some reason, of spring flowers, and a dewy field of grass at dawn.

            When the last of the light was squeezed out, the pale man withdrew his hand.  There was no sign of the orb now.  He nodded to the red-haired man, who looked at the contents of the bowl, frowned thoughtfully, and went to pump the bellows a few times.  He looked into the bowl once more and nodded.  Then, with a hooked metal pole, he carefully tipped the stone bowl so that the liquid within would run into the mold.  The stuff was now the very color of sunset, just as melted steel ought to be.

            Once the mold was full, the red-haired man righted the bucket again.  Then he went to get a hammer and a pair of tongs from the rack on the wall.  He returned to the mold, held the hammer above it for a moment and bought it down hard, smashing the clay.  He used the tongs to catch the red-hot steel bar within before it could fall to the ground.  Then he carefully held the bar in the flames of the forge, removed it, and went to the anvil.  He lifted his hammer high, and when he brought it down it rung true against the steel.

            With rhythmic blows he beat the bar flat, then folded it in half, then beat it flat again, then folded it again.  Jack watched in fascination as the red-haired man repeated the process over and over again.  He lost count of how many times the steel was folded over, but he did notice that the worked metal was starting to take on a familiar shape. 

            Finally the red-haired man ceased his hammering and with the pair of tongs held the fine, curved blade in the air with an expression of triumph.  He bought it to a bucket of water and dipped it in, causing a great cloud of steam to rise into the air with a hiss.  When he removed it, it was once again a gleaming ribbon of steel.  Jack felt his heart lift at the sight.

            "Now to finish the job," the red-haired man announced.  He bought the blade over to a workbench, upon which the pieces of the katana's hilt rested.  He picked them up and began working on fitting them onto the end of the blade.  When he was finished, he picked up a narrow black strip of cloth and wound it carefully around the handle.

            At last, he looked up with a broad grin.  "There.  It's done, good as new or maybe even better.  Try it out."  He handed it to Jack, who took it from him slowly, his eyes wide.  He bowed to the red-haired man, stepped back and tried a few experimental parries, thrusts and slashes with it.  Indeed, it was as good as it had ever been.  Jack found, somewhat to his surprise, that he was wearing his katana scabbard at his hip, though he had not put it on before embarking on this strange journey.  He slid the blade into its scabbard and prostrated himself on the floor of the smithy before the two men who had done him such a great service.

            "I am eternally grateful to you for what you have done.  Thank you."  He looked up again.  "What can I do in return?"

            **_Wake up,_** said the pale man, extending one graceful hand before him.  He opened it and golden sand swirled forth, becoming a sparkling cloud that surrounded Jack and blocked out the rest of the world.

            He realized, only then, that he had never learned the name of the man who had saved him and repaired his sword.

~***~

            When he opened his eyes, it was to gold-dappled green.

            Birds were singing in the trees, and the air was warm.  Jack sat up and stretched, wondering about the strange dream he had had last night.

            Or…had it been?  It had seemed so very real…

            Feeling a sudden panic, he drew his katana from its scabbard.  It was whole and sharp as ever.  With a smile and a nod, he sheathed it again.

            He looked around.  He was in a small copse of trees, on a bed of fallen leaves where he had spent the night.  He was sure he had.  But he didn't remember going to sleep here.  He must have, though.

            He stood up and got his sandals from where they were sitting nearby, his mind trying to untangle exactly what had happened.  Yes, he _had_ gone to sleep in this little wooded valley, but in a bed in a house.  And there had been a man.  Two men.  And a girl in black.  No, that was the dream.

            He found a small spring nearby.  He took a drink from it, washed his face and hands, and fixed his hair into its usual topknot.  It had only been a dream anyway.  It had started as a nightmare, he remembered.  Yes.  And the house and the strange people were part of the dream.  But he still couldn't remember going to sleep last night.

            Never mind.  It had only been a dream, if a strange one.  Nothing more.

            He looked up at the blue sky, listened to the birds, and took a deep breath of the clean air.  It was a beautiful day, and this was a nice place, but he had to move on.  He had his quest, after all.

            He found a small path, which led to a split in a great rock wall.  He squeezed through it, then stopped on the other side to get his bearings, and decided to travel eastward.  He began walking that way, jumping over the occasional large rock, feeling content in his heart and whistling a merry tune.

~The End~


End file.
